FBI Director Says North Korea's Sony Hackers "Got Sloppy"

Illustration for article titled FBI Director Says North Koreas Sony Hackers Got Sloppy

FBI director James Comey just explained new details of the Sony hack at a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University in New York City. "Several times they got sloppy," he told the audience, referring to the hackers. In more technical terms, the hackers revealed IP addresses in North Korea that they "exclusively used." That's how the FBI knows it was North Korea—or so says the director.


It's worth noting that several security experts have pointed out that IP addresses that appear to be in North Korea aren't necessarily in North Korea. As Mark Rogers explains, "It isn't the IP address that the FBI should be paying attention to. Rather it's the server or service that's behind it."

Regardless, this is Comey's full explanation, courtesy of Andy Greenberg at Wired:




One of the biggest questions that Comey addressed relates to the many security experts who maintain that blaming North Korea for the attack makes no sense. There are some signs that suggest North Korean involvement, but it's hardly conclusive, many security experts say. Bruce Schneier, for instance, has written a couple of columns to that effect at The Atlantic. "However you read it, this sort of evidence is circumstantial at best," said Schneier a couple weeks ago. "It's easy to fake, and it's even easier to interpret it wrong."

To the skeptics, Comey simply said, "They don't have the facts I have."

Comey's remarks came flooding in through Twitter as he gave them. We called the FBI to confirm the claims, but the press office wasn't able to confirm specific quotes as Comey often speaks "off-the-cuff". For confirmation, the FBI told us to look on Twitter. So we did.

Here's Mashable's Lorenzo Franceshci:


Wired's Andy Greenberg:


And CNBC's Eamon Javers:


And finally the FBI itself:


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Denver is too damn high

Still feels like an inside job. I can't comprehend the capability to learn how to hack in a country where access to education and computing resources is so limited.

Spoofing an IP address from NK? Totally within reason.